


your best jokes

by tminuseternity



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M, brad and ray try to make nate laugh, inspired by a tumblr post, thats it, thats the fic, this fic is mostly just significant looks as per canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 09:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17937290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tminuseternity/pseuds/tminuseternity
Summary: “How we rock each other’s woooorld—”Ray is putting on a show for a very specific audience and Brad is the only one who notices.Or, how a competition starts, and ends, in the heart of a war zone.





	your best jokes

**Author's Note:**

> So this is based on this post: https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/amelancholyuniverse/182925232923  
> I hope this link works.
> 
> I have no excuses for this. I hope you guys like it :)

They hardly need to talk about it. They’d talked about it enough before, in slow  _ what ifs  _ and  _ maybes  _ to be stored and reopened in the future like a time capsule. This isn’t the place for that kind of conversation anyway, where sand and sun are sucking them dry and in a vast land of nothing they still can’t get a moment alone.

So no, they don’t need to talk about it, but that doesn’t mean Brad is blind.

“ _ How we rock each other’s woooorld—”  _

The only real upside is that Ray can’t see the results of his actions, his back turned on all of them as he pisses into the sand. He doesn’t get to see the LT walk away out of the corner of his eyes, the smallest trace of amusement still clinging to his lips. Ray is putting on a show for a very specific audience and Brad is the only one who notices.

Annoyance sparks through him, but he isn’t cruel or stupid, and when Ray turns around it dies before it even truly lived. Sharing the results of said show is beneficial to both of them, so Brad raises an eyebrow, moving his head so slightly that most would have mistaken the nod for a twitch. 

It’s worth it, even if Ray does look incredibly, secretively, pleased with himself, the grin he wears when he wants people to think something he did wasn’t intentional plastered on his face.

And that, Brad decides, casting a quick glance towards their lieutenant walking away with his board in hand, requires direct counter action.

  
  


“You’ll have to deal with it, sergeant, we have four more towns to assault through today. You want logistics? Join the army. Marines make do.”

Brad turns to Walt to commiserate and catches Ray looking up at him from where he’s standing next to the rear wheel of the humvee. He’s shaking his head and Brad knows if they were anywhere else, doing anything else, he’d be hearing it right now. Ray can’t keep quiet when he has nothing to say, let alone when he has something he thinks is important to say, as Brad is sure he does now. 

He can almost hear the long-winded, pseudo-annoyed diatribe as if Ray is transmitting it through psychic means. He should be glad Ray isn’t actually psychic but since he’s already started imagining Ray’s voice in his head what difference does it make? A year ago he would have told himself he had to stop spending so much time with his RTO if this was going to happen but now he wouldn’t give up the ability to decipher Ray’s looks for anything.

He’s sure Ray would say a lot of things, but chief among them he’d accuse Brad of playing dirty, which is, well. True, or true-ish. Sexual jokes are low hanging fruit but who is he to resist when the results are so sweet? Besides, he can’t anticipate Fick’s reactions and there would be no point in trying.

When Brad lands on the ground, sending a small cloud of dust up from beneath his boots, he looks at Ray with as straight a face as he can manage and holds up his index finger. They’re tied now.

Ray responds with two fingers, and a smirk that can’t be tamed.  _ J-Lo  _ he mouths, wiggling his fingers then putting his index down, leaving his middle standing.

Brad scoffs and let his face fall into a glare that does nothing to tamper Ray’s spirits. He could argue it—because really? He thinks  _ that _ counts?—but instead he ducks into the humvee, not missing the low chuckle.

This isn’t over.

  
  


He loses count at some point during the invasion, and he knows Ray does too, but that doesn’t stop them.

It becomes something more important than the two of them as the days drag on and it gets harder to imagine anyone laughing after the shit they see. Nate’s eyes drift to somewhere far away when he thinks no one else is looking, and this escapes neither Brad nor Ray. They see the way he fights, with his words, his weapon, as everything he believes slips from his grasp like sand.

For a split second, when Nate is offering him a latrine and Brad can’t stop his slow grin, he thinks Nate has figured them out, knows what they’re doing. But if he does, he doesn’t say anything. (Would it be such a tragedy if Nate knew? He’s doesn't think so.) 

So they don’t stop whatever it is they’re doing. Each quirk at the corner of Nate’s mouth is a miracle when splitting grins are a thing of the past, or at least, that’s what Brad thinks until he’s watching Rolling Stone flail down the alleyway away from sniper fire.

“Next time we come under fire,” Lovell tells the breathless reporter with an unstoppable smirk, “run in a straight line. You’ll live longer.”

“And live a full happy life of betraying us and others with your venal lies,” Brad adds, and reaps the rewards in an instant.

It’s as close to laughter as he’ll get at this point, when Nate huffs a breath through his wide, shining smile. Brad feels selfish as he commits it to memory, drinking in the curve of his lips, his cheeks, the crescents of his eyes as quickly as he can. He wishes Ray could see it too.

  
  


It doesn’t take anywhere near as long as Brad thinks it might, and it doesn’t happen anything like he expects it to. 

Ray leaves the corps around the same time as Nate, and they talk about it over drinks, about what they did and what they’re each doing next. It’s good, and the way it makes the tension in Brad’s shoulders disappear for what feels like the first time since they came home is even better. Ray has one too many beers and his head rolls onto Brad’s shoulder and it says something about what he’s imbibed too that he doesn’t shake Ray off, just presses his face into Ray’s hair. 

When he looks back up, Nate’s eyes are a touch wider. “Oh,” he says. “You’re…?”

Brad hums and takes another sip of beer. 

“How long?”

“About a year now.”

Nate’s expression turns calculating, thinking back to a year ago but nothing significant happened this time last year, at least, not for anyone else. They part ways an hour later with easy, inebriated smiles and Brad can’t squash the hope it leaves him feeling for the rest of the week.

Before Brad’s leave is over, it turns into something regular and he departs for his next mission with the knowledge that Ray has Nate’s number in his phone, near the top of his text conversations. He’s in good hands. 

Ray keeps him updated but nothing happens. When he comes back they’re friends, comfortable and at ease in each other’s presence and his integration into their established dynamic is painless. He watches them tease each other, watches Nate’s smiles fade from his face until only the longing is left, open and raw for anyone who takes the time to look. Brad does, and when that expression is turned on him he doesn’t look away.

They wake up in Nate’s bed, Nate in the middle, and when he sees they’re awake he says, “Was this always your intention?”

“No,” Brad answers, at the same time that Ray mumbles into Nate’s neck, “Yeah, totally.”

They glare at each other, and Nate looks between them with a small smile peeking shy like the sun. “I’m not mad. If I was mad I wouldn’t want to do this again, and I definitely want to do this again.”

Ray kisses him like he’s just won a million dollar question. 

It doesn’t take long for Nate to make himself at home in their bed and in their home, and soon enough it’s as though he was never missing at all.  
 


End file.
